Learning Falcon 104: Make a Simple Synth

Now that we have looked at editing existing sounds, let’s start creating some new ones from scratch.

In an empty part, go to the Main > Edit view. In the Mapping Editor, right-click and choose Create Keygroup > Synth Template.

A new keygroup has been created, mapped to the full key and velocity range.

Play a few notes, and you will hear a simple sine wave oscillator. Let’s change that to a sawtooth wave, by clicking the Waveform and choosing Sawtooth from the menu.

We can continue building our sound by editing the other synth engine parameters, such as enabling Stereo mode and adding additional voices.

To stack multiple synth sounds, we can add a second synth keygroup. Let’s choose Create Keygroup > Synth Template a second time, and another keygroup will be stacked on top of the first. For this keygroup, let’s choose one of the oscillator’s factory presets, such as “Accordion”.

Perhaps instead of stacking these sounds, this could be a split program instead, with one sound for the left hand and another for the right hand. To do that, we’ll need to adjust the key ranges of the keygroups so they don’t overlap. Right-click in the Mapping Editor and choose Select All, then choose Resolve Overlapping Key Range.

The keygroups can now be easily edited separately. For example, the key and velocity ranges could be further adjusted by dragging the edge of the keygroup.